


venus's hymn

by acosmic



Category: Ensemble Girls! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/F, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 09:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15749253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acosmic/pseuds/acosmic
Summary: anzu goes to find a rumor.





	venus's hymn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silkwyrm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkwyrm/gifts).
  * Inspired by [coastline](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15357588) by [aestheticisms (R_Vienna)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Vienna/pseuds/aestheticisms). 



> for flap. i started this for your birthday when it actually was your birthday and it is decidedly not your birthday or even close to it. sorry.  
> since it's your 1st day of classes, please take this as encouragement.
> 
> granblue AU inspired after reading aestheticism's fic which i'm mildly embarrassed about because i admire their writing a lot but [clenches fist] gotta credit

There’s a rumor of a ghost that plays the piano.

Anzu thinks it’s a little hackneyed, the library phantom, the piano-playing ghost—there are too many lost souls in Kimisaki Academy. It goes with such a long, storied history of raising girls to be ladies and ladies into weapons. Weapons break and magic runs out.

She’s fine with whatever outcome. Except her spells fizzle and she bleeds and bruises in practice fights, and she wonders if she’ll ever be better than this.

So when the school newspaper puts up a notice looking for evidence of the piano-playing ghost, Anzu obliges. She’s tired of hiding from the tea ceremony club in the dark corners of the dorms with no one but herself for company. It would be a good change of pace to have a _goal_ , even if it’s practically a joke.  

The tower that’s rumored to be her haunt is one of the oldest, made of rough hewn stone—it’s an anachronism against the shining white marble buildings of the new campus. The rumor is that it’s been there since the time of the astrals.

The air is thick with dust, while moss dampens the sound of her footfalls on the marble staircase. The staircase is ornate to the point of ostentatiousness, a quality that was lessened by the fact that chunks of it were missing and moss and lichens and ivy were wrapped around it, devouring the past and growing towards a future of a quiet ruin. It’d be a lie to say that Anzu didn’t find it, at least a little, beautiful.

As she ascends, Anzu pauses to check the halls, faded rugs and furniture still in place. She sits on the furniture, lets the dust cling to her uniform, and studies the entwining patterns in gold and green on the carpets, but she eventually returns to the stairwell.

One slip and she’d become one of those wonders of Kimisaki. Although, it might be more interesting than this.

By the time Anzu comes across her, she’s stopped counting the floors. It’s the door closest to the window, panes shattered, cracks in spiderwebs, with the doorknob a glistening silver that feels cool against her sweaty palms as Anzu turns it.

There’s a piano, and there’s a girl sitting at the piano bench.

Her hair makes a golden halo around her face, and, when she smiles, everything in the room is centered around her. She’s so bright, it makes Anzu feel sick to look at her directly.

She looks at her feet instead. Her shoes are covered in dust. She’d have to borrow shoe polish.

It’s a bit anticlimactic when the girl finally speaks, “You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Yep.” It’s a terrible response, so she says a terrible nonresponse, “I guess that means you’re dead.”

The girl laughs, something too long to be comfortable. It sits on the border of lovely and hysterical and Anzu wants to hear more of it.

“I’m the seraph of this tower, but you may call me Seira.”

* * *

It’s better than being on school grounds, Anzu reasons as she climbs up the stairs.

Getting evidence for the school newspaper is the other reason. Although, Anzu wasn’t sure if she wanted to share it.

Seira plays the piano and Anzu listens. Nothing more, nothing less.

They don’t speak much, which is fine. Anzu doesn’t ask why Seira’s there, which is also fine.

She wants to, but only a little.

“Do you want me to bring you more sheet music?” is what Anzu asks instead.

“If you bring more, I’ll play it. if you don’t, I won’t,” Seira goes. “you can bring whatever makes you comfortable.”

On her next visit, Anzu brings: a plush stool, the maroon velvet worn from years of use, from her dorm room; sheet music copied from the library’s records; a broom.

Seira watches Anzu clean from her piano bench, shifting through the sheet music Anzu had given her.

“Do you need any help?”

“Could you—” Anzu sneezes. “Could you play me a song?”

Seira obliges.

* * *

“You’re so genuine, Anzu,” Seira says.

“You only say that because you haven’t been around people in a long time.”

“It’s that type of humbling—or is it self-deprecating—answer that makes me say it.”

She’s tired of hearing about _humble_ and _sensible_ and _hard-working_ even though it’s the only thing she has. Anzu entwines her fingers together and lets one question slip.

“Were you like this before?”

 _Before you died, that is._ _Were you angry? Was it unfair? Did you find it unfair?_

_You’re so calm. Serene. Rough edges worn down. Sea glass smoothed by the waves._

But it’s not like Anzu knows enough to make that assumption.

So:

“Were you—”

“I don’t remember.” Seira’s voice is woefully empty, woefully tired. “There are things I _do_ remember, of course, but…”

It’s a pause where Anzu wrings her hands, cursing herself, and Seira looks out the tower window.

Seira goes, “The leaves are changing colors,” and lets Anzu fill in the space next to her. Anzu carefully undoes the window latch and the two of them stick their arms out, catching the breeze with their hands, sweat cooling on their palms.

“Autumn’s here already.”

Anzu doesn’t bring it up again.

* * *

It’s dark out when Anzu wakes up, the only light from the moon and stars. With her back to it, Seira’s impossible to see clearly, but Anzu can see the white of Seira’s smile.

“Anzu, don’t you think you spend too much time here?”

“I like being here.”

“Hm.”

“I’ve probably missed curfew.”

“You could stay overnight, if you want to, but I doubt it’d be comfortable.”

“It’s all right. I don’t mind.”

“You’re too forgiving.”

“What’s there to forgive?”

Seira turns to lean out the window and hums. It’s a song she’s hummed before, but Anzu won’t ask.

“Your circumstances.”

Anzu moves toward the window, next to Seira, and says absolutely nothing.

The stars were closer than she thought from the tower, the moon impossibly big, it all hurts to look at.

She closes her eyes as Seira continues her lullaby.

* * *

Between stitches, Anzu asks, “Why this tower?”

Seira frowns and pulls the curtain Anzu’s repairing closer to her. Anzu lets go of the needle, rolls her thimble across her palm, and waits for an answer.

“It didn’t have to be this tower. There was the temple and home and there’s the school now, but…”

“But?”

“But the piano was here.”

* * *

“You’re lonely.”

“Just because I’m alone doesn’t mean I’m lonely.”

“Even so, you’re lonely.”

Seira takes her hand. Anzu flinches.

Seira leans in, too close, too far, too _something_. Anzu doesn’t move. She closes her eyes.

It’s cold.

* * *

She can’t remember who started that conversation.

* * *

It’s a bit of a habit now for Anzu to copy sheet music in the library.

The notice for the piano-playing ghost is gone now. Plastered papers proclaim that the Student Council is keeping secrets from the student body. Anzu ignores it and wanders the shelves.

Shion smiles whenever she sees Anzu. A slow smile, a finger to her lips, a rumor remains a rumor.

* * *

“I’m not going to be around next week,” Anzu says. “We have a winter break.”

They’re both sitting on the piano bench, Anzu out and Seira in, facing the piano with her hands pressing on the cover in front of her.

“I want you to deliver a message for me,” Seira says. It’s after a period of silence, in which Seira is thinking and Anzu is trying not to think.

“Is that going to help you rest in peace?”

Seira tilts her head and puts a finger against her lips. They’re a rosy pink. Anzu vaguely wonders if it comes with death that you become more beautiful along with everyone’s memories of you, the rose tinted glasses you see the deceased with practically, or impractically, applying to ghosts. Seira interrupts Anzu’s train of thought with, “I think I’ve been here for too long to rest in peace.”

“I’d like it if you were.”

Seira hums. They don’t dwell on the cruelty of Anzu’s statement. They don’t dwell on the kindness of it either.

The message is written on the back of sheet music in blue ink that drips too heavily and bleeds through. Seira folds it without ceremony. Anzu takes it and runs her fingers along the measures.

When Seira speaks again, her voice is heavy with longing, “Have you ever heard of the Primal Beast Clochette?”

* * *

Anzu is a little in love with her—a tragic heroine, a tragic villain.

Raven and vermillion and gold. Bandages and roses. Chaotic and gaudy and obsequious.

 _Suzu, the girl,_ Seira had told her, _became Clochette, the Primal Beast._

Anzu doesn’t mind the details. It’s what the letter’s for.

She recites it.

Loudly, clearly, like someone else.

Like Seira.

Well, naturally, it’s not her own words, so she tries some of her own:

_“A pleasure to meet you, Suzu.”_

It’s a bit of a cliché.

Suzu doesn’t mind.


End file.
